Disposal of medical waste material is an ever-present and on-going problem for medical practitioners and facilities such as hospitals and doctors' offices. Typically, medical waste material such as used syringes with projecting, sometimes exposed needles, swabs, bandages, gauze, gloves and the like are placed in what is known as a sharps container. These sharps containers allow disposal of dangerous material such as used needles but additionally prevent retrieval of same by a restrictive opening used for depositing the contaminated materials. The sharps container is typically formed of a plastic, metal or sometimes a corrugated fiberboard material having the restricted opening for receiving the waste material. Use of fiberboard sharps containers is a cost-effective solution to the problem of medical waste disposal because the cost of fiberboard containers is very substantially less than the cost of metal or plastic-type containers and fiberboard containers are substantially equally effective.
While transmission of diseases such as hepatitis or HIV is not solely limited to handling and disposal of medical waste material, substantial disease transmission to medical, as well as non-medical, for example, housekeeping personnel, can and does occur during usage and improper disposal or handling of needles or sharps containers. For example, housekeeping personnel, untrained, or even when trained, in handling medical waste, may inadvertently incur a needlestick injury while attempting to discard used syringes which have not otherwise been properly disposed. Also, the supply of disposable medical products in containers such as boxes which are discarded once the products are removed and the provision of additional sharps containers for disposal of the used medical products results in the use of two or more containers for handling essentially the same product. Consequently, there is a demonstrated need for a single container which will provide both functions, supply of product and disposal after use.